CYCLING THROUGH ENGLAND'S NEW FOREST

A hearty breakfast of kippers, toast and tea gains an extra dimension when served in a room resembling a Moorish palace. You can savour the combination at Rhinefield House, a 19th-century country mansion built in Tudor-Gothic style in the heart of England's New Forest. Run as a hotel these days, Rhinefield House makes a memorable overnight stop on a cycling tour in an area which seems created for bicycles.

A breakfast fit to fuel a day's pedalling (bacon and eggs if you don't like kippers) arrives in surroundings copied meticulously from Spain's Alhambra Palace. Diners sit among onyx pillars, Islamic inscriptions, elaborate mosaics and decorations wrought by Moorish coppersmiths. Instead of the morning newspaper, you can read the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam inscribed on a copper and bronze lantern. The mansion was designed last century by an eccentric Army officer and an adjoining room replicates Westminster Hall.

The New Forest, a region of many surprises, lies 85 minutes south of London by rail. I arrived in one of its most agreeable villages, Brockenhurst (the name means "badger wood"), by train from London's Waterloo station. Country Lanes, a company which organises "short break" cycling tours for small groups or individuals, met me to supply me with a sturdy Raleigh model bike, fitted with a map-holder, a water bottle and – most useful of all – 21 gears.

Country Lanes runs "pampered cycling" trips lasting one to five days, with participants covering perhaps 10 or 15 miles a day at a leisurely pace and staying in splendid country hotels like Rhinefield House. Many cyclists are international visitors, aged on average between 30 and 40. Fine dining and gentle exercise make a stimulating blend.

A meeting with my cycling companions was followed by minor adjustment to the bikes and judicious oiling of chains to prevent squeaks. Each cyclist in our little band of three was given a foolproof, self-guided cycling itinerary.

Step-by-step instructions run like this: "On leaving Hatchet Pond turn right and then almost immediately left into Furzey Lane. Just after a residential property on your left, veer left onto a track." Teetering slightly, we pedalled into the summer haze along Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, an magnificent avenue of tall trees planted in 1857.

The “New” Forest has not changed greatly since William the Conqueror proclaimed it in 1079. Western Europe's largest remaining unspoiled medieval forest is a diverse 142-square-mile cross-section of southern English countryside. Less than half of it is covered by forest. The region includes moors, bogs and much open grassland as well as woods and glades. Sizeable areas burned out by incendiary bombs during World War II have regenerated. Villages are clannish and charming; place names are evocative: Ferny Knap, King's Garn Gutter Inclosure, Dames Slough, Bucklers Hard, Pixey Mead and Puck's Piece. With its gentle gradients, the region is kind to amateur cyclists.

"Watch out for animals on the forest roads," Country Lanes owner, Susan Achmatowicz, advised us. Animals have right of way. Deer, donkeys, ponies and cows roam freely, while badgers, foxes, squirrels, voles, shrews and otters (plus fugitive mink, escapees from fur farms) keep a lower profile in the woods. The Forest's many stocky ponies, with their shaggy manes and unkempt tails, are reputedly descended from hardy ancestors which swam to the Hampshire coast from the wreck of the Spanish Armada. They trot along in pairs or groups, foals nuzzling their mothers. The ponies are owned by New Forest Commoners, residents who enjoy common rights of pasture granted in 1217, when fencing of agricultural holdings was forbidden by the newly crowned king, Henry III. About 5000 animals roam common land and are allowed to graze on an extensive part of the Forest known as The Ancient and Ornamental Woodlands.
As our pedals turned and the road from Brockenhurst wound past thatched cottages and the 13th-century remains of Beaulieu Abbey, we decided the Turfcutters' Arms looked the ideal spot for a break. The "ploughperson's lunch" at this rural pub comes with a whole loaf of bread (complete with breadboard), smoked trout, stilton cheese, tomatoes and pickled onions -- all for about £4.00. You can sit at an outside table and listen to birdsong. All the British woodpeckers thrive in these parts, as do Britain's three species of newt - common, crested and smooth. Newts keep to themselves - you are unlikely to meet one unless you cycle into a stream.

A visit to the gents' toilet at the Turfcutters' Arms revealed a quaint local custom -- the urinal is chock-full of coins. According to the barman, patrons habitually drop coins in for good luck. Bagfuls of money are retreived annually and donated to the Stoke Mandeville Children's Hospital. (It seemed churlish to ask who fishes the coins out and cleans them.)

The Turfcutters' Arms closes at 3pm. Afternoon closing is no longer mandatory in today's Britain, but the pub's voluntary closure prevented us loitering too long, dozing in the sun, having a pint or two more and perhaps cycling accidentally into a stream full of newts. Other pubs dot the Forest. The Trusty Servant stands near Deadman Hill (once the site of a gallows). The Alice Lisle pub at Rockford is named after a 17th-century noblewoman condemned by the bloodthirsty Judge Jeffreys to be burned at the stake for harbouring fugitives. She appealed for clemency to King James II, who graciously interceded, commuting Alice’s sentence to beheading. Naturally, her ghost is said to haunt the area, riding about in a wagon with headless horses and no driver. (The apparition is best viewed shortly after closing time.)

Brockenhurst boasts three pubs around the village green: the Morant Arms, the Forester's Arms and The Snakecatcher. The last is named after Harry "Brusher" Mills, the Forest's official adder catcher, who lived deep in the woods and is buried in the village churchyard.

Adders, Britain's only poisonous snakes, live in the New Forest but are rare and shy – a bit wimpish, really. Their bite is hardly ever fatal -- and they cannot keep up with a bicycle.

Brockenhurst is linked to the Isle of Wight by trains running south to the coastal fishing and tourist town of Lymington. These connect with the Isle of Wight ferry for a scenic 30-minute crossing to Yarmouth, the Isle's main port. The Isle is a worthwhile day-trip from the New Forest and is included in Country Lanes' step-by-step itinerary. Favoured by tourists and retired people, the Isle is now considering seeking partial automony from the mainland and setting itself up as a tax haven. It resembles a watercolourist's dream of England in miniature, with patchwork fields, rows of flowers beside neatly painted cottages, pubs, tea rooms, old churches and friendly policemen. The row of thatched houses in Winkle Street, Calbourne, is so endearingly cute you almost expect Rupert Bear to emerge and offer you tea and scones. The Isle is hillier than the New Forest but the steeper hills are optional on the itinerary. From the Isle's summit, white cliffs in the distance look remarkably like the famous ones at Dover. Don't be fooled -- they are actually on the Isle of Wight.

The trip ends back in Brockenhurst outside The Thatched Cottage Hotel, built in 1627 and converted tastefully to hotel use five years ago. Here, cyclists dismount and settle down to afternoon tea. Rupert Bear was unavailable to serve this repast, but Mathias Matysik obliged. The Matysiks (Martin, Michiyo, Margaret and Mathias), are a German family who run the hotel to international standards. Cyclists spending the night in The Thatched Cottage enjoy amenities including Turkish steam baths and four-poster beds with wildflowers strewn over the canopies. The morning's impressive breakfast is constructed around free-range eggs, smoked bacon and "award-winning New Forest chipolata sausage." Ideal fodder before the train trip back to London.

©2002-2006 TravelMatch Ltd. Please read Copyright Disclaimer.